LibGuides: World Music: Finding Articles

Music & Performing Arts Library

Music and Performing Arts Library

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Subjects: Dance, Music, Theatre

Introduction

This page includes resources for finding popular and scholarly articles about world music. We've included some suggested music databases below as well as recommendations of specific publications to check out. If you need a refresher on how to find articles through an academic database, check out our library guide.

Finding Journal Articles for Music Research
This guide is an introduction (or a refresher) to searching for, accessing, and evaluating articles for music research.

Suggested Databases

Although there isn't a specific database that deals exclusively with world music journals, we have several database recommendations for you that index world music material.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and basic sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added approximately on a weekly basis. The University of Illinois has access to the following JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I-XV, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Business IV, Global Plants, Hebrew Journals, Ireland, Life Sciences Collection, Lives of Literature, Security Studies, Struggles for Freedom - South Africa, Sustainability, and World Heritage Sites - Africa.
Music Index This link opens in a new window
Contains cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for every aspect of the classical and popular world of music including musicological and organological topics, as well as book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries from more than 850 music periodicals from over 40 countries.
Alternate Access Link
Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
A database with full-text and abstracts of articles on music. Includes indexing for music articles and obituaries from the New York Times and The Washington Post. Covers nearly all aspects of music, including scholarly studies and popular trends. Coverage: 1874 - present.

Recommended Journals

There are few journals that deal specifically with ethnomusicology, but many that might be helpful for particular topics of research. This list is only of journals dealing specifically with ethnomusicology. You can find others by searching the catalog or browsing either at MPAL or at the area studies library most closely related to your research.

If you are looking for a particular journal, you can search for it using the Journal and Article Locator.

Ethnomusicology
Call Number: 784.405 ET
This is the primary journal for ethnomusicology, put out by the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM).
SEM Newsletter
Call Number: 781.71 Se51
The SEM also puts out a quarterly newsletter.
British Journal of Ethnomusicology
Call Number: ML3797.6 B74
You can access some issues online through JSTOR.
For later issues, note that the journal changed name to British Forum for Ethnomusicology Newsletter and, later, Ethnomusicology Forum.
British Forum for Ethnomusicology Newsletter
Call Number: ML3544 N48
Earlier issues called British Journal of Ethnomusicology and later issues called Ethnomusicology Forum.
Ethnomusicology Forum
Call Number: ML3797.6 B741
Partially available online in Informaworld and EBSCO.

Earlier issues called British Journal of Ethnomusicology and British Forum for Ethnomusicology.
The World of Music
Call Number: 780.5 WO
This was originally the journal of the International Music Council, then the International Institute for Traditional Music and currently the Department of Ethnomusicology, Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg.